FTB To broker or not?

RobMoz

Hi there,

I'm a FTB and I've spoked to a really friendly fees-free whole-market broker who was recommended by a friend. However the rate she's quoted me is quite a bit more than the rates I'm seeing on Moneysupermarket etc.

I'm wary of going it alone but there seems to be a huge saving to be made. Am I missing something?

Advice welcome!

Thanks in advance.

betmunch

Do you know if you are likely to be accepted by the lender you found on MSM?

If you are confident enough to get it done yourself then go for it.

If you are not then go to the broker.

Alternatively pay an Idependent Mortgage Advisor to do it for you. Whole of Market advisors wont offer you this option.

ACG

There could be a number of reasons...you might have found a deal thats only available if you go direct or the broker might not think you will get accepted with the lender you have found (im guessing its either first direct or hsbc?, both of these are very hard to get accepted with - have a look on these forums).

Take those deals to your advisor, see if he can tell you why he hasnt chosen them.

RobMoz

There are several deals - Britannia and Co-Op being the main ones - which I believe are direct hence not available via my broker.

I'm eligible in terms of LTV but (and sorry to sound stupid) but how do I know if I am likely to be accepted....?

ACG

Do you have any credit history anywhere? Is it good, any missed/late payments etc.
How much is your income, how much are you looking to borrow, how much is your deposit (it sounds like deposit wise your sorted).
Do they lend in your area - some lenders (not co-op) are postcode specific.

Im not trying to make our job more important as many of these things wont be an issue, but theyre all things that need checking otherwise your wasting your time, credit score and potentially money.

Co-op are not on a whole of market advisors panel, neither are brittania. But its kind of the choice you take really.

Obviously if you go for either of those you would be saving however much over the 2-3 year deal but you then have to do the work yourself. Is it worth paying an extra £10-20 a month for 2-3 years to save you the hassle and stress? - Only you can decide that really.

JS_33

From one FTB to another-
I don't for a second imagine that our whole-of-market, independent mortgage advisor has truely offered us the lowest rates, and I imagine that her comission has had an effect with who we are currently applying with.

However, she has taken so much stress out of the whole process, has found us a pretty good deal, and seems to be working really hard for us. Our last meeting with her was at 6pm Tuesday to go through the full application...we left at 6.45pm... we got a text msg from the lender at 10.30pm (same evening) to confirm our applictation had been received.

For us personally, it's been well worth it.

betmunch

As ACG says theres a few things to consider.

For me another big one for purchases is how quickly will they turn your application around. You dont want to be stuck in underwriting for 3 months while your vendors are fretting that theres a problem and asking the EA to remarket.

Ultimately, you pays your money and you takes your chance.

betmunch

JS_33 wrote: »

From one FTB to another-
I don't for a second imagine that our whole-of-market, independent mortgage advisor has truely offered us the lowest rates, and I imagine that her comission has had an effect with who we are currently applying with.

Good to see your support for the broker there.

If you employed her on an Independent basis (you pay a fee and have any commission earnt paid back to you) then she should have considered everything.

Sounds to me like you employed her on a Whole of Market basis, which only considers commission paying deals, even if you pay a fee.

skinnyman9000

JS_33 wrote: »

From one FTB to another-
I don't for a second imagine that our whole-of-market, independent mortgage advisor has truely offered us the lowest rates, and I imagine that her comission has had an effect with who we are currently applying with.

However, she has taken so much stress out of the whole process, has found us a pretty good deal, and seems to be working really hard for us. Our last meeting with her was at 6pm Tuesday to go through the full application...we left at 6.45pm... we got a text msg from the lender at 10.30pm (same evening) to confirm our applictation had been received.

For us personally, it's been well worth it.

I agree with this. Our broker recommended a rate of xx%, I went on moneysupermarket and found rates much lower. When I looked into it more most were with Chelsea & Yorkshire, so Accord mortgages, who I've tried to steer clear of after finding nothing but bad feedback. Then there was a co-op mortgage that seemed very good, but I couldnt find any trace of it on their website, so I gave up. Finally there was a lifetime tracker from Britannia, which I suspect is the same one your found. Yes we could have applied for this, but the interest rate was 0.4% different. And going at it alone would have been alot more stressful than via the brokers. They're taking care of everything for us. This way we have one point of contact instead of several, and they do all the leg work.

Some people might be happy to put in the extra effort for a slighty lower rate, but for us it wasnt worth it.

ACG

If you went whole of market - not independent, then they would be choosing the best rate from what is available to them.
It makes no sense to choose a lender based on commission (mainly because were not allowed) but also because most lenders pay the same amount of commission there or there abouts, there isnt a lot of difference on that front between them.

JS_33

betmunch wrote: »

Good to see your support for the broker there.

If you employed her on an Independent basis (you pay a fee and have any commission earnt paid back to you) then she should have considered everything.

Sounds to me like you employed her on a Whole of Market basis, which only considers commission paying deals, even if you pay a fee.

I didn't mean any kind of offence! (If you read to the bottom of the post, you'll see that I'm full of praise of her work and that we really value having her on board.)

We were essentially given the choice of paying a fee, or not- none of the above was explained to us, so naturally we went for no fee. I didnt realise that the nature of her services would change...The company website says 'whole of market... independent'- so naturally that's what I thought the service was.

I accept that I might be a naive and inexperienced FTB, but I wasn't trying to accuse our broker of anything untoward!